Tuesday 19th March
We have had a good day today travelling 7 miles and the 11 locks of the Atherstone flight from Polesworth to Hartshill in 4 hours. We were lucky with the locks because they were all in our favour and we took 2 hours to do them. I walked the whole flight, which is about 2 miles, although there is a towpath closure between locks 7 and 6 which meant I had to get back on the boat for a few hundred yards.
We are moored downstream of Bridge 32 at Hartshill, near the B W yard. The tv signal here is rubbish on the digital aerial and the satellite. The signal keeps going off completely then coming back on again for no reason at all. Not sure why they should both be dodgy, we can usually get one or the other. I may have to miss Midsomer Murders!
This afternoon we walked, about half a mile up the towpath to The Anchor and got covered in mud, it was like a quagmire! We did have some idea about going there for a meal tonight but we didn’t fancy the muddy walk in the dark so we changed our minds. We could have moved the boat down and moored outside the pub but we decided not to do that either.
After one pint in The Anchor we walked into the village – eventually! We didn’t want to wade through all the mud on the towpath again so we set off down the road in the right general direction of Hartshill. About 20 minutes (a mile) later we were on the outskirts of Nuneaton and Bedworth (Camp Hill) because the road had to go round the Hartshill Quarry. We turned off towards Hartshill and it was about another mile and a half to get there. It had turned quite warm by this time and we were seriously over dressed! We suddenly spotted The Royal Oak so we went in for a rest!
The Royal Oak turned out to be about another mile from the boat so we had a 4 mile round trip. I had already done 2 miles up the locks as well! I will sleep well tonight.
